If someone was walking on the concourse at Food City Center during a Lady Vols basketball practice, coach Kim Caldwell wants them to think a game was going on.
For it to be a good practice for Tennessee, shoes should be squeaking, players are loud and the energy is palpable. It’s nowhere close to a dead gym.
After a lackluster showing the last four games, the No. 5 seed Lady Vols (22-9) have an opportunity to redeem themselves in the NCAA tournament, starting with their first-round matchup against No. 12 seed South Florida (23-10) on Friday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) in Columbus, Ohio.
Caldwell has seen the return of fun, competitive practices after they “kind of hit a wall” near the end of the season. Caldwell compared it to running through mud.
“Today we had probably two minutes where they’re just squabbling with each other,” Caldwell said Monday. “Not in a negative way, but they’re just arguing over fouls or whose ball it is, and they’re just really getting back to their roots of being a competitive program.”
A win Friday would match the Lady Vols with No. 4 seed and host Ohio State (25-6) or No. 13 seed Montana State (30-3) in the second round on Sunday.
Senior point guard Samara Spencer said the team has strung together a couple of good practices, which was “rare” going into the SEC tournament. They weren’t having good practices, and it showed as the Lady Vols lost three of their last four games going into March Madness.
“Sometimes it kind of feels like we’re on opposing teams, even though we’re all on the same team, because we’re competing so hard,” Spencer said of recent practices. “But that’s just what our brand of basketball is – being able to compete with each other, so that when we go out there on the court and play somebody else, it’s easy for us.”
But the break since Tennessee bowed out of the SEC tournament has helped it reset. Senior guard Jewel Spear said recovery and treatment has been an important, as well as some extra skill sessions.
“I think we’re all on the same page, I really do,” Spear said. “Just competing against each other, having fun, and the little things – high-fives, joking around with each other, and just getting back to us and what we love to do.”
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Caldwell is no stranger to the postseason, having led Glenville State to the Division II national championship in 2022. Her championship team was a senior-heavy team, like this Lady Vols team, and everyone was all in, because there was no next year.
“I think you need to have a team that is a hundred percent locked in,” Caldwell said. “And every single player on the roster wants to win more than they care about getting through a practice or their feet hurting or the how many points they score or anything else. You have to be selfless … When you can have a team that has that mindset of it’s everything right now, all or nothing, you never get to do it again, you’re pretty hard to beat.”
Cora Hall covers University of Tennessee women’s athletics. Email her at cora.hall@knoxnews.com and follow her on X @corahalll. If you enjoy Cora’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that allows you to access all of it.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Why Kim Caldwell, Lady Vols could be back on track for March Madness
